To the Goddess named --- Venus (and Ceres)

Where the satyrs are chattering, nymphs in their flattering

Glimpse of the forest enhance

All the beauty of marrow and cucumber narrow

And Ceres will join in the dance.

Where the satyrs can flatter the flat-leaved fruit

And the gherkin green and the marrow,

Said Queen Venus, 'Silenus, we'll settle between us

The gourd and the cucumber narrow.'

See, like palaces hid in the lake, they shake --

Those green houses shot by Her arrow narrow!

The gardener seizes the pieces like Croesus for gilding the

potting-shed barrow.

There the radish roots

And the strawberry fruits

Feel the nymphs' high boots in the glade.

Trampling and sampling mazurkas, cachucas and turkas,

Cracoviaks hid in the shade.

Where in the haycocks the country nymphs' gay flocks

Wear gowns that are looped over bright yellow petticoats,

Gaiters of leather and pheasants' tail feathers

In straw hats bewildering many a leathern bat.

There they haymake

Cowers and whines in showers

The dew in the dogskin bright flowers;

Pumpkin and marrow

And cucumber narrow

Have grown through the spangled June hours.

Melons as dark as caves have for their fountain waves

Thickest gold honey. And wrinkled as dark as Pan

Or old Silenus, yet youthful as Venus

Are gourds and the wrinkled figs

Whence all the jewels ran.

Said Queen Venus, 'Silenus,

We'll settle between us

The nymphs' disobedience, forestall

With my bow and my quiver

Each fresh evil liver:
For I don't understand it at all!'

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Tarantella from "Façade" by Edith Sitwell

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